somebody had a birthday

So, for the next four days Kev and I are the same age. . . again. We took the birthday boy out to Applebee's for supper and made his open his presents while we waited for our food.

My parents found him this fantastic sweatshirt . . . and Josiah screamed "Go Niners!"

Jo picked out a special gift for his dad: an electronic poker game, to practice on between Guys' Nights:Love that guy! After supper we wanted to go out for ice cream at Coldstone but they were already closed so we got Frosties at Wendy's instead. (we'll go to Coldstone next week for my bday - blueberry muffin batter, here I come!)I got him a digital guitar tuner and cord and Gennie got him a "family night":: a movie we can all watch, popcorn, candy and Chex Mix (since Kev hates popcorn).Then, instead of birthday cake, I made this to celebrate with homegroup:It's a platter of cupcakes:
I got the recipe out of the book Hello, Cupcake! that my mom got me for Christmas. I LOVE IT!! The noodles are just frosting and the sauce is strawberry preserves and the meatballs are Fererro Rocher hazelnut candies. They tasted even better than they look!

Happy Birthday, Kev! Love you so much!

if you give a boy a sucker....

So, they knew we were doing pictures, but they didn't know about the surprise:

That last one was THE one I wanted!!!


Love those boys! I'm so thankful that J has such a fantastic friend -- and that our families are good friends, too!

Now how are we going to top this next time?

can you guess what we did today?

More to come ~ I promise!

first the library, now Walmart?

So, this kid is gonna get me in trouble. Or at the very least, kill me from embarrassment.

We had to make a Walmart run today. . . ugh . . . I hate that place . . . so we ran over there after bible study this morning to grab what we needed and get out of there as fast as possible. Jo did really well, keeping busy with his Goldfish and talking to everyone we passed, and in all honesty it was a good, uneventful trip.

Until the end.

Lately Jo has been really interested in pointing out colors he recognizes, whether its around the house, something we pass in the car, store shelves, etc. It's like an I-Spy thing he does, saying the color and making us guess what item he's talking about. Usually I'm all for it.

Until today.

I paid the lady at the check-out and turned to get the last bags off the turn-around thingy. Jo was sitting in the front of the cart trying to put his own jacket on. Suddenly he got all kinds of excited, pointed wildly and announced, "That's BLACK!!"

I was trying to maneuver the cart out of the way of the ridiculously pushy people behind us who apparently thought the check-out lady was going to reshelve their items if they didn't swipe their card before she finished scanning their stuff. I narrowly missed being rammed by Pushy Pete and looked around quickly to see what Jo was pointing to.

That's right, folks. It was a delightful African-American man standing in the customer service line.

Of course there were people all around us, and Jo's not a quiet kid in anything he does so I'm sure they all heard him. My mind scrambled to think of a way to recover this. Luckily the person in front of our subject was wearing a black shirt so I quickly stage-whispered, "Yes, he is WEARING A BLACK SHIRT, isn't he?" hoping the crowd would believe me.

But no, the kid didn't let me off that easy. "No, Mom, THAT! I like black!" And the pointing continued. I whispered fiercely, "Okay, Jo, that's enough!" and all but ran for the door.

Hooray for Ethnicity Awareness!

#50

So, this weekend I finished my 50th baby blanket! Whew! I didn't even realize I was close to that many until I recently put together a small album of the photos from all the blankets I've made. My dad has been building radio-control airplanes since before I was born and has always taken a "done" photo of each for his little collection . . . thought I'd do something similar, not just because I'm addicted to mini albums, no matter their topic, but also to remind me which patterns I've done and liked and which ones I won't bother with again.

This one is called a Teddy-Go-Round and I love it. Both my kids have tried to convince me it has a happy home waiting in their rooms but I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet.

Any suggestions?

Hope your Valentine's Day was great!

HUGE website update!

So, I finally updated my photography website! Come on by and check it out! Every gallery has new portraits in it so be sure to look thru them all.

Find me at www.andersonfotos.com!